


Cradles and Storms; part two

by NavyGreen



Series: Dwarven-Kings and Green Valleys [4]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Baby Frodo, Cradle making, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Protective Thorin, Thorin Lives in the Shire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23305417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NavyGreen/pseuds/NavyGreen
Summary: Thorin struggles to hide Frodo's cradle from Bilbo.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins & Frodo Baggins & Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Series: Dwarven-Kings and Green Valleys [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675180
Comments: 25
Kudos: 358





	Cradles and Storms; part two

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy.

Thorin had never been good at hiding things.

In Erebor, before it had fallen to the dragon, Thorin was taught honour, responsibility, and the duty of being truthful.

To hide something was to be ashamed, to be doing something _wrong_.

But that, Thorin had learnt, was not true. Thror had not hidden his obsession with the abundance of glittering gold within Erebor’s treasury. Neither had Smaug.

(And neither, Thorin thought with the bitter taste of guilt under his tongue, had he.)

So, Thorin considered it a miracle that Bilbo – expert burglar Bilbo – had not discovered the Dwarf’s secret craft.

Little Frodo’s cousins (and Aunts and Uncles and… second cousins? Third?) wanted to see him all hours of the day – _the same cousins (and so forth) who wouldn’t take him_ , Thorin would mutter whenever Bilbo brought it up. And so, to “keep good relations” (“ _I know, Thorin, I don’t like it either, but the Thain is a very important Hobbit”_ ) Bilbo left around luncheon each day, and returned in the early evening.

Each time the Hobbit left with little, swathed Frodo, Thorin felt something inside him twang like an untuned harp string. But he trusted Bilbo, and the Shire was safe beside the vicious gossiping.

Or, at least, that was what Thorin tried to convince himself during the long hours of quiet.

Upon inspection, the cradle Thorin had first seen the night of Frodo’s arrival was irreparable. Large wooden splinters were bent at wrong angles, and the main structure of the cradle had been removed. Even if Thorin could fix it, he could not trust in his hands to ensure it would be safe for a Hobbit child.

(And there was a story he had not been told. Even touching the cradle had spread a low, sticky feeling through his chest. To handle it, to modify it without Bilbo’s permission- no, Thorin could not commit to it.)

Instead, Thorin had dared the Shire’s roads (which, compared to those of Dwarven make, were much too puzzling. Honestly, some good city-planning would make a fine start to the Shire’s approachability) and entered the Shire woodland, axe in hand. There, he’d cut down a straight, tall birch tree, shaved its branches, and separated the trunk into chucks. After collecting the pieces into a bag, he’d carried it back to Bag End. Hobbits had glanced at him oddly, whispering to their companions and dodging out of his way – but that was nothing new, being the only Dwarf in the Shire apart from travelling caravans from Ered Luin.

When Bilbo had returned – with little, cooing Frodo – and questioned the slices of birch by the kitchen hearth, Thorin had called it firewood and turned back to his second (more successful) attempt at soup. Bilbo, it seemed, did not question it.

The next day came with a quick kiss from Bilbo before his usual lunch-time leave. That day Thorin spent those precious hours sketching multiple designs, all half-finished and never quite right. Each design was folded up and tucked into a book on the lowest shelf, right before Bilbo returned home.

Only in the second week did Thorin stare upon a design and feel a sense of satisfaction. But, the front door had clicked open, and off it went, folded into a book.

* * *

Frodo laid curled in Thorin’s arms, half taken by sleep. Sun shined upon them in a soft haze, and it glittered in his Frodo’s dark hair. Like obsidian, or black opal.

“And then Durin carved us from stone,” Thorin said. His finger traced the back of Frodo’s hand.

The Hobbit child peered up at him with his soft sea eyes, enraptured by the sounds he didn’t understand. A soft coo escaped him.

Further in the garden, with elbows and knees brown with dirt, Bilbo looked up at them. “Is he hungry?”

Thorin cast a questioning glance to the baby below him. Frodo, in turn, smiled up at him toothlessly.

“No,” the Dwarf replied from the porch. “I don’t think so.”

Bilbo nodded, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “One of my cousins has a spare cot we could borrow, for Frodo,” he said as he dug his fingers into the soft soil. “It needs some maintenance, though.”

Thorin frowned. Maintenance was code for _not safe_ , for _could harm_. It wouldn’t do.

But he couldn’t just tell Bilbo he had a cradle in the works – if there was once secret he was going to keep, it needed to be this one.

“Perhaps,” he began, shifting the baby in his arms. “Frodo should stay on the bed – with us. There’s not a lot of room in the bedroom for a cradle, after all.”

Which was why Thorin was making his small, and mobile.

Bilbo rose to his knees, trowel and bundle of carrots in hand. His brow creased, and his lips pulled tight in thought. “True,” he said, syllabus stretched. “And I wouldn’t want to put him alone in the nursery.”

“Absolutely not,” Thorin agreed. “He’s too young.”

Bilbo’s brows lifted and he smiled. Something self-satisfied lit his eyes. “We’ll wait until he’s older.”

Thorin nodded and leaned back, retreating from the sun. Frodo had begun to turn his face away, nose wrinkled in discomfort. The Dwarf kissed his brow.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered to the boy. “I’ll finish your new cradle within the week.”

* * *

Thorin did not finish Frodo’s cradle within the week.

A flash storm had once again taken the Shire in its wet, windy hands. Windows rattled in their fittings, and a towel had to be permanently placed under Bag End’s front door to prevent water from seeping into the hallway.

And as resilient as Hobbits were, they were also a people of comfort. And a long stroll through the rain and mud was anything but comfortable.

Thus, since Bilbo made the sane decision to stay within the shelter of Bag End, Thorin’s quiet hours working on Frodo’s cradles were ripped from him and onto the soggy cobblestones on Bag Shot Row. Thankfully – thank Aule, or Yavanna, or whoever – Thorin had hidden its half-finished pieces within the shed, safe from the unexpected rain. And despite how hard the thunder roared, or how bright the lightning flashed across the floorboards and walls of Bag End, wood – even the softened kind of birch – was not susceptible to such perils.

Frodo, however, was not.

Thorin held the squirming boy against his shoulder, a hand under his legs and the other rubbing his back in slow circles. While the Dwarf was no stranger to loud noises – the long hours of forges had made sure of that – the poor child’s screaming was making his ears ring.

“Let me,” Bilbo said, arms outstretched.

Thorin handed him over willingly.

Frodo’s small face was crunched in distress, eyes flickering between squeezed shut or blown wide. His stout fingers clutched at Bilbo’s jumper, and he pressed his face into its woollen weavings.

Thorin’s softened heart thrashed within his chest. While thunder and lightning were certainly not uncommon to the high elevations of Ered Luin and Erebor, their thick layers of stone had muffled it into a low, pleasing rumble. There was no layer of protection here beyond the thin layers of soil acting as Bag End’s roof, and the home suffered all the more for it.

“Yavanna, I wish he had a music box,” Bilbo mumbled. He began pacing around the bedroom in short, quick steps.

Thorin made a mental note to write to Bofur. Would Frodo prefer _Blunt the Knives_ or _Song of Durin_? The latter was perhaps too long, though held the melody of a lullaby more than the former.

Bilbo pressed a kiss to Frodo’s soft crown. “My poor little boy.”

A thundercrack travelled through the air like a whip, and it rattled the window with the force of an Orc.

But, unlike an Orc, the cause of Frodo’s tears was not something Thorin could defeat with a well-aimed swing of Orcrist.

And it _hurt._

His cradle, Thorin thought, would have a fabric cover, to muffle flashes of light. Perhaps something to sound-proof it, too.

Bilbo sat on the bed and shuffled back across its green sheets until he could curl against the headboard.

“My poor little boy,” he murmured. “We’re here.”

Thorin climbed onto the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight.

A flash of light dived through the window and speared through the curtains, illuminating the room for a brief moment.

Thorin wrapped his arms around his Hobbit’s waist, and he rested his cheek on his honey-coloured curls.

“We’re here for him,” Thorin whispered.

Bilbo’s back rose in uneven intervals. His breath left him in hushed gasps. Frodo’s wails were softened, but not completely gone.  
“He has us,” the Dwarf continued. “He’ll have us forever.”

He felt Bilbo nod. In turn, he tightened his arms and kissed his crown again.

* * *

The storm had broken, parted like a vein of iron, the following day.

And while Bilbo had left to grocery shop, Thorin spent the few hours (grocery shopping, Thorin had discovered, was a long and complex process to Hobbits) on the cradle.

Bilbo had not trusted the storm in keeping its distance and, not willing to risk a cold on little Frodo – Aule above – had left the boy, for the first time, in Thorin’s solitary care.

“Would you prefer a wider bed, to stretch out, or a small once, so you’re nice and tucked in?” Thorin asked.

Frodo lay nearby, protected by a temporary bed of pillows. He cooed in response.

Thorin nodded. “I agree.”

He added a quick adjustment to the sketch before him. Being hidden for so long in Bilbo’s book of Shire Histories; the Tooks had left it heavily creased.

“Colonnaded sides, or no gaps?” he asked again.

The hearth of the living room – lit low, as to not make Frodo uncomfortable – flickered mutely. Frodo glanced towards the open doorway and cooed at it.

“Brilliant, Frodo. Half and half – horizontally.”

Another adjustment and messy scribble.

“Blue blankets,” Thorin said largely to himself. “I’ll write to Dis, see if she’ll be willing to send some black tourmaline.”

Frodo wiggled his fingers into his mouth and smiled.

“Glad to know you agree. You have fine tastes, Frodo.”

* * *

Bag End was quiet.

With Bilbo once again disappearing from his family home (“The Thain wants me again, dear.”) Thorin stared upon his finished cradle in relative solitude. Frodo had left his company sometime before to answer to the common call of sleep.

Soft, pale wood made up the cradle’s main construction, to which Thorin had spent many hours sanding into a smooth – and splinter-less – surface.

The Gamgees – a friendly and kind neighbouring family who had _both_ welcomed him into their home without question and invited him for Luncheon – had gifted him a set of light-blue baby sheets they were no longer in need of. All Thorin had to do for payment – which, Hamfast Gamgee had firmly insisted upon was optional – was move around some furniture.

The kindness – and practicality – of Hobbits would never cease to surprise him.

The cradle – like any proper woodcraft – needed nothing to secure its joints but well-designed notches and joints. Nails? – Thorin was a skilled craftsman, and Frodo only deserved the best.

Nails were for shoddily designed houses and sheds. For hastily constructed Manish structures. Not for cradles for little treasures.

And while Frodo had certainly enjoyed his cradle – as he now slept within it – Thorin could only hope Bilbo would too.

* * *

Thorin’s nerves wracked his bones as Bag End’s front door opened.

A burst of light framed Bilbo as he stepped inside, arms bent upwards as heavy bags gathered in the crook of his elbows. His closed the door with a well-placed kick.

“Afternoon,” he said with a smile. “How’s Frodo?”

Thorin pushed off from the wall and gestured to the bedroom. “Come take a look?”

A split second of worry flickered in Bilbo’s eyes, but he blinked it away with little struggle. He set his bags by the door and, rubbing the crooks of his elbows, shuffled towards the bedroom. “Is it what I think it is?”

Thorin grinned and followed him down the hall. “Take a guess.”

“Oh, it’s a game, now? You know I-”

“Love games, yes dear.”

Bilbo raised a brow and wrapped his fingers around the doorknob. “Is it a gift?”

“It is.”

“Is it something you crafted?”

It was Thorin’s turn to raise a brow. “Well- yes.”

Bilbo grinned, like a cat licking cream, and pushed open the bedroom door. “Is it a- oh, Thorin!”

The Hobbit’s face lit up, lips tilting upwards and eyes blowing wide. Frodo, settled in his new cradle, had woken to his presence and now began to wiggle in his sheets.

Bilbo stepped to the cradle and wrapped his fingers around the cradle’s edges. “Oh, Thorin, it's beautiful!”

Thorin felt something warm rush through his blood. “I’m glad you like it- it’s nice and safe for it- and we can cover it in storms but see these holes- so he can breathe and stretch-”

Bilbo pressed a kiss to his cheek and placed a hand on his chest. “Its perfect, Thorin.”

Oh, thank Aule. The Dwarf placed his hand over his Hobbit’s. “Is it what you expected?”

Bilbo’s face split into a grin. “It wasn’t hard to notice you were hiding something. You always say too much – and say it too fast.”

Thorin made a mental note – but knew any efforts he’d make couldn’t stand up to the par set by his Hobbit. “But the cradle?” he questioned.

“Well, no.” Bilbo looked down at Frodo, who was cooed delightedly. “I knew you were making something. I just didn’t know what until I needed my The Tooks histories for Frodo.”

“And the rest-”

Bilbo patted his chest. “I found them soon after – you need a new hiding place. But nothing could have prepared me for this- oh, Thorin. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, and for our little Frodo!”

The familiar swell of a piece well-crafted made Thorin’s head spin. He would’ve stumbled if not for the strength of Bilbo holding him tight.

“Oh! I have luncheon to make, could you stay here and watch-”

“It’s mobile,” Thorin interrupted, taking the end of Frodo’s cradle and pulling it towards him. Its wheels barely rattled against the floor, though Frodo’s pleased coos made up for it.

Bilbo looked as if someone had asked him for an adventure. “ _Oh, Thorin._ ”

* * *

Later that night, after the hearth had cooled and even the birds had gone to bed, Bilbo placed a small hand on Thorin’s forearm.

“I went to the post this morning,” he whispered. His breath tickled Thorin’s nose. “And I learnt someone had sent a letter under the Baggins’ name.”

“Hmm,” Thorin hummed. By their feet, Frodo slept on, protected in the cradle attached to the footrest.

“Said it was heading over the Misty Mountains,” Bilbo continued quietly. “Quite a long way.”

Again, Thorin hummed. Sleep teased the edges of his mind, but his eyes, for now, remained on his Hobbit.

A smile tugged Bilbo’s lips upwards. A silver scar below his lip twisted with the moment. Thorin struggled to remember how he’d gotten it. _After the trolls, surely. But then again-_

“I hope you gave Erebor my regards.”

Thorin, too, smiled. He could keep nothing from Bilbo, it seemed.

“Of course,” he replied, voice slightly raspy. “I’m expecting a reply within the next few weeks, though it could be longer with the packages.”

“Packages?”

Thorin chuckled, low and quiet. A strand of black hair fell into his eyes. Bilbo brushed it back behind his ear with a steady hand, dropping his hand to cup Thorin’s bearded cheek (it had grown significantly since their return, as the Dwarf could find no reason to shave it any longer).

Moonlight fell upon Bilbo’s brow, though Thorin did not need it to see the fox-like gaze observing him.

“I asked for some baby things,” he said, continuing before Bilbo could. “Clothes, recipes, toys.”

Bilbo closed his eyes, and his shoulders released a tension Thorin had not known he’d been holding. _“I love you, Thorin._ ”

Outside, all was quiet in the Shire.

“I love you more, Bilbo.”


End file.
